


Shell Games

by weakinteraction



Category: The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Genre: Gen, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-18 17:05:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14856734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: Special Circumstances say that there are three possible fates awaiting their drones: going down in a blaze of needlessly self-destructive glory, voluntary self-exile, or living long enough for their exploits to matter so little that they are able to publish a memoir.The argument about which of these is preferable is said to reveal much about a drone's character.





	Shell Games

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phoebe_Zeitgeist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Zeitgeist/gifts).



I had been just about to guide Naoro Rem into disposing of the diamondsteel arm in the magma chamber when we found ourselves abruptly Displaced onto an ice moon of one of the outer planets. I was suddenly missing the outer casing that made me appear an even older drone than I in fact am ... but the incriminatory arm was still very much present and correct.

Rem's emergency gelsuit began to form around him in time to prevent him dying of asphyxiation. I suppose that I would have done something clever with my fields if I had absolutely had to.

"What just happened?" Rem asked.

I was saved from having to admit that I was asking the exact same question by a further Displacement -- a module appeared. The usual pop was absent, in the near-vacuum of the moon's surface.

"We should probably go inside," I observed.

Once we had entered, a holo opened, showing a recording of our exploits beneath the about-to-be-christened Plate. Scaratoka Hub's voice boomed through the module, audibly angry. "I do _not_ appreciate Special Circumstances deciding to use my superstructure to dispose of its dirty secrets."

"Ah," I said. "You know."

"Yes, Sprant Flere-Imsaho Wu-Handrahen Xato Trabiti, I do know. Though I have to admit if you hadn't been keeping an open link to your backup recording substrate I wouldn't have figured things out in time."

Rem glared at me. "Backup recording substrate?" he mouthed. I ignored him.

"Since you're both Culture citizens, I don't have the right to ban you from the entire system, much as I might wish to. But if you come any closer to Scaratoka Orbital than your present 30 microlights, please believe me when I say that I will make this recording public. I'm sure Special Circumstances would prefer to avoid that."

"So we're exiled?" Rem said.

"If you want to keep in SC's good books, anyway," Hub said. "Next time you want to ritually burn something in molten rock, find a planet with active tectonics rather than picking on an Orbital willing to be creative about its Plates. This module can get you to the next inhabited system in about forty years, or you can call for help from one of your ship friends."

The holo clicked off and, although there was no other direct change, it was crystal clear that Hub had withdrawn its presence.

"Backup recording substrate?" Rem said, out loud this time.

"My memoirs have proved surprisingly popular!" I said. "I wouldn't want to disappoint my public by having gaps in the record of our exploits. Just think, one day I could make you as famous as Jernau Morat Gurgeh."

"When I'm long dead," Rem said. "And isn't Gurgeh mostly famous now as having been someone you manipulated every step along the way? Pretending to be three different drones, none of them really 'you'."

I decided it might be best not to answer that.

"It's all right for you," Rem said sullenly after a moment. "There was this one guy at the party last night who I was sure--"

"Just think, if you ever meet him again, you'll have the perfect sexy story of being an SC agent," I said. "Anyway, I'm having to forego my usual pleasures too: with no atmosphere there definitely won't be any birds here," I said.

"Why do you like birds so much anyway?" Rem asked.

"Oh, you can always judge a multicellular biosphere by its avianforms," I said. "Even more ubiquitous in convergent evolution terms than panhumanity, birds. Did you know that?"

* * *

We were on our fourth day of me pretending not to understand that Rem was only being polite when asking me polite questions about birdwatching when the _Gunboat Diplomat_ announced itself by applying its fields with surgical precision to deconstruct the offending arm -- the only remaining evidence of a particularly messy intervention on a minor planet somewhere spinward of the Glittercliff -- into its tiniest component, and then annihilate them entirely.

The whole exercise of destroying it underneath Scaratoka _had_ been an enormous waste of time, as far as I could see, given the capabilities of any Culture ship, let alone those working for Special Circumstances. I could only presume that someone somewhere wanted the Hub Mind to believe that it had got one over on SC as part of some baroque long term plan.

"I didn't know you were in the volume," I said to the good old _Gunboat_.

"You mean, you didn't know that--" it Displaced us aboard between one word and the next "--I was still around at all."

"Well, yes," I admitted.

"You know this ship?" Rem asked. "Hello, ship," he added, taking in the surroundings. The _Gunboat_ had made a bit of an effort for once: there was a soft couch and even some potted plants.

"Oh, we go way back," I said.

"Flere-Imsaho is almost as old as I am," the ship said. "Shouldn't you have retired by now?"

"I've got at least a _few_ decades left before I start shaking my fields at these young devices made of E-Dust, who may have human-equivalent minds but only incorporate and display an aura out of their overdeveloped sense of politeness."

"Most drones join a group mind long before reaching your age," the _Gunboat Diplomacy_ said.

"Pah," I said. "That's almost as boring as when a human goes into long-term Storage, asking to be taken out only when the Culture is about to Sublime."

"I think you're too much of a misanthrope to cope with being part of a group mind," Rem said.

I flashed frosty grey fields at him for just a moment, but it wasn't exactly as though he was wrong.

"That's why I was going to look you up sooner or later anyway," _Gunboat Diplomacy_ said. "I have an offer you might find more interesting."

"Oh?" I said.

"A few of us antiquated ex-warships are considering taking a long journey."

"I've already been to the Clouds, remember?"

"Rather further than that," the ship said.

It took a moment for me to catch the drift. "The Great Spiral?"

"No one's ever attempted it before."

"There's a reason for that, Ship: it's _two megalights away_. Through nearly completely empty space. It would take _decades_. You'll just go mad halfway there. Or Sublime. Or both."

"Well, then, at least we'll provide some data about the effects of very-long-distance space travel on Mind psychology."

"Count me out," I said.

"You know they won't let you publish any more memoirs," the ship said. "Not while you're still around, anyway. Everything else is far too recent."

I considered. "Maybe I'll just write a book about birdwatching instead."


End file.
